Accidental knowledge: passive gains in political knowledge and electoral accountability

Scholars have focused on active learning to explain differences in political knowledge among the public. This article develops and tests a <i>passive</i> learning model for attaining political knowledge, and suggests this process can increase voters’ ability to hold their representatives accountable for individual and party actions. Specifically, I propose that repeated accidental exposure to political information stemming from the seniority of members of Congress mimics learning processes and raises political knowledge. I find that enough accidental knowledge can be gained from this pathway to advance an individual’s political knowledge even after controlling for established predictors of political knowledge. These findings open new avenues of study, including a reevaluation of the efficacy of term limits in improving the quality of democracy in the United States.